


Ornamental

by Ally147



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21583378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ally147/pseuds/Ally147
Summary: There’s a bauble beneath the low lounge opposite her, resting against the far wall.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 26
Kudos: 210
Collections: D/Hr Advent 2019





	Ornamental

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm... this is kind of strange. I haven't written Dramione in over three years. I thought my writing journey with these two was long done, but apparently not. Thank you to whomever nominated me for the Advent this year. It was truly a surprise and delight to get the email after so long away from the fandom :)
> 
> Thank you to kanamesharisen for being so kind as to bring the band back together, so to speak, and beta for me once again (though I was weak and tinkered more post-beta, so any lingering errors are all mine), and thank you to the mods for allowing me a few extra days to get this done.
> 
> The prompt for this fic was **Tree Ornaments**. Also, sorry; it's kinda angsty :P

There’s a bauble beneath the low lounge opposite her, resting against the far wall.

It’s silver, she thinks. Maybe covered in a kind of shimmer. No light is hitting it under there. No life. No sparkle. There’s something written along its side, maybe, but it might be fluff. Maybe a crack in its thin, glass surface. Maybe nothing at all.

It’s quite possible she’s imagining all of it right now.

There weren’t any other hints of Christmas in the manor when they were dragged through the halls earlier, but that doesn’t tell her anything. She can’t remember now if the holiday has passed already, or if it is upon them now. No. It must be a well after now. It was Christmas in Godric’s Hollow, wasn’t it? And they left there… was it a few days ago? A month ago? A year? Or maybe she’s still there, dreaming, collapsed after the… whatever it was that happened. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? It’s all bleeding together too much, her memories a smear of colour, light and sound. Abstract and nonsense, freeform and floating without a tether to the world.

But she can’t take her eyes off that bauble.

Was it dropped? No, not if it’s glass. Maybe it rolled under when they were decorating a tree and they left it there? But that would be strange, too. It looks special, like something you might treat like a treasure, wrap in tissue paper and nestle in its own box. Her mum had one she treated like that. It was her grandmother’s, she remembers hearing when she was still small, and maybe her grandmother’s before that. A wooden carving of a reindeer, plain and with thin, brittle antlers that would have snapped under the barest breeze of pressure. Always placed on the highest boughs of their modest trees: high enough that a grabby little Hermione couldn’t reach, but low enough that a fall wouldn’t end it.

No, someone must have put it there. Hidden it. On purpose. The thought is intriguing, but much less satisfying than the idea that it is simply a forgotten holiday trinket, a casualty of Voldemort insisting on his hosts providing a bit of festive cheer amidst all the — not. That he might be as particular about the arrangement of a tree or the perfect roast of a ham as he is about mass genocide. She tries to imagine the manor done up with tinsel garlands and strings of fairy lights, Voldemort in the middle of it all with a Santa hat sitting askew on his bald head and a carving fork in his hand. The expectant, ruddy faces of his supporters around a long table as he carves up the turkey and extends a perfect slice to each of them.

She laughs despite herself, coughs up blood. Someone screams — not a fearful scream. This is enraged, unhinged. A huge crash and voices, familiar. Something wrenches her up by her hair and presses something sharp and cold against her throat. The same sharp cold that carved lines into the soft skin of her forearm only a little while ago, and it sucks the air from her lungs. She splutters something, but she doesn’t know what she’s saying, if she’s saying anything at all.

A shower of glass explodes in her vision, sparkling like fairy dust as it settles. She falls back to the floor, her forehead slamming against the ground. The bauble is still there, rocking a little on its axis, fading in and out of her spotty vision. Unharmed, though what could have gotten to it under there? It’s a safe hiding place, after all. A thin, clammy hand grasps her arm, slipping and sliding in a pool of — is that blood? Is it hers? How deep do those cuts on her arms go? Did the blade against her throat carve a deep, wet line across it? Is she dead? No… death wouldn’t hurt so much, would it?

Her last thing she sees before the world twists and turns black is a flash of wide, frantic grey eyes. The same kind of grey as the bauble under the lounge, maybe. She hopes whoever hid it there finds it again one day.

**XXX**

The trials are over almost as soon as they begin. Coverage of them is limited; more media attention is dedicated to the reopening of old favourite shops, the re-emergence of old favourite artists, than anything of political value. She understands, to a point; people want to get back to their lives, begin the rebuilding process and put the war behind them, but isn't this ignorance what got them all into trouble in the first place? The public is informed when someone receives the Kiss, but little else is said.

But perhaps it's unnecessary. No trial lasts longer than a few days. From what Hermione can tell, most of the cases are open and shut.

Draco Malfoy’s case, however, is not.

She’s not part of his jury, but she’s kept track of him since the end of that last battle (if she was ever asked why, she’s not sure she’d be able to give a straight answer). His prosecutors ask her thoughts when they adjourn for the day. A strange courtesy, but one she's glad for.

“I think…” She trails off. There’s a lingering twitch in her right hand that hasn’t disappeared since after what happened at the manor. The best healers in the country haven’t been able to help it. She supposes it can’t be all sunshine and miracles. She watches her fingers spasm without feeling it happen.

“Yes, Miss Granger?” the prosecutor prods.

“I think he’s just as much of a victim as the rest of us,” she says, still watching her fingers. “With everything he went through… he deserves peace, too.”

He’s cleared of all major charges the next day.

**XXX**

When it’s all over, she sends Malfoy an owl. She’s not sure why she does it — perhaps she doesn’t have all her mind back yet — and she’s not sure why he would care. She encloses the note, written in handwriting much more jagged than she's used to, inside a singing Muggle birthday card she picked because it made her laugh when she was in the shops, and she thinks everyone could do with a laugh right now. Even Malfoy.

She doesn’t expect a reply, but one comes two weeks later, a terse, almost rude thank you that invites no follow-up.

She sends another anyway.

**XXX**

A few months later, Malfoy sends her a birthday card. It has a tiered cake made of books on the front, and it doesn’t sing. He mentioned in one of his earlier letters that the singing card she sent was too loud in his silent home and scared the daylights out of him when he opened it, and if she could please _refrain_ (that word is underlined several times) from sending singing missives in the future if she’s going to be so insistent on corresponding with him.

Enclosed is a (much too large) voucher for Flourish and Blotts, and a wish written in vivid green ink for her to have a happy day. Perfunctory, but just what she would expect from Malfoy.

She spends the entire voucher the next afternoon on books she doesn’t need, and spots Malfoy in the café next store over. She doesn’t stop to talk. They haven’t spoken in person since well before the war — and she doubts it was a kind conversation, anyway — but she catches his eye and smiles.

He hides it behind his teacup, but she swears he smiles back.

**XXX**

She sends Malfoy a Christmas card a few months later and refuses to think any more about it for the rest of December.

The season is bringing up all sorts of memories she’d like to pretend don’t exist. It’s the first one since it all happened: how was she meant to know it would affect her so much? Harry and Ron pay a visit to her house — _her parents’ house_ — extending an invitation to Christmas lunch with the Weasleys next week. They implore her, tell her it’ll be good to get out and speak to people again. When she tells them no, not yet, they tell her she hasn’t been the same since the war ended. She watches the spasm of her fingers again; they’re dead right.

Malfoy sends a reply on the twenty-third. Cutting it a little fine, she thinks, but he’s got as much cause to be distressed by the holidays as she does. A note falls out, along with another voucher — Flourish and Blotts again, and for double the value he gave her for her birthday. His coffers can’t have suffered too much in the previous year, not like some of the others.

His note is short, as they all are, but she reads it four, five, six times to make sense of it.

Draco Malfoy is inviting her over for a _drink_ on Christmas Eve.

Her first instinct is to tear the note up and throw it in the fireplace. Malfoy wouldn’t question it if she didn’t go, if she just pretended like the note never arrived. Because it’s strange, isn’t it? It’s not like they’re… friends or anything like that. They’re two people who exchange letters from time to time. Pen-pals at best. How does that warrant an invitation like this? But then she wonders what his holidays are going to be like. His father in jail, his mother… wherever she is, and him all alone in that massive house.

_That_ massive house.

It's stupid. It is so, _so_ stupid, but she sends a note telling him to expect her tomorrow evening before she can change her mind. Hell, maybe she can conquer some demons while she’s there.

**XXX**

She’d prefer to catch a bus to Malfoy’s home in the Wiltshire countryside, but the service hasn’t been reliable since it started snowing. The uncontrollable spasm in her fingers makes deliberate wand movements difficult, but she Apparates anyway, landing somewhere a little closer to the main gate of Malfoy Manor than the front step.

The garden is covered in a light dusting of snow, but it does little to disguise the overgrown flowerbeds, the grass tickling her ankles, the cracked, uneven stonework on the path and the steps leading to the front door. Any other time, she'd comment on how unsafe the path is, between the cracks, the snow, and her worn boots, but she can't say her home is any better. She knocks on the door; a silvery wreath hangs there like an afterthought.

It takes a long moment before he answers. She hears him on the other side, muttering to himself. She wrings her hands, small in her too loose gloves.

When he tugs the door open at last, letting out a puff of fire-warm air, she cocks her head to the side and surveys him. A shadow of stubble darkens his cheeks, more golden than the corn silk white of his hair, and dark purple circles ring his eyes like he hasn’t known sleep for months. A dark grey shirt hangs off his too-slim frame, and she’s a little surprised to see he isn’t wearing any shoes.

“Granger,” he says, his voice like gravel. “Um… glad you could make it?”

She ignores the question in his tone and sweeps past him. “Malfoy.”

He shuts the door and stares at her like she's an apparition. “You can… do you want me to take your coat?”

“Oh, um… all right.” She slips the heavy thing off her shoulders and hands it off to him. She watches him hang it on a stand at the end of the hall, wondering if she should smile at him, or make a run for it.

“You, uh… don’t have any elves, do you? That could have done that instead?” she says instead. She’s rusty with conversation.

He shakes his head. “Not anymore. Though there might be a couple left in the east wing, minding their own business.”

“You don't know?”

“I boarded up the east wing the second they let me out of remand. I’d burn it to the ground it if it wouldn’t compromise the structural integrity of the rest of the house.”

She knows the answer, but she still asks, “Why?”

He sighs. “Because I never want to have to look at the east wing again, Granger, and I doubt you’d want to, either, all things considered.” He beckons her down the hall, his shadow long and thin. “Come on. Drinks are through here.”

She follows him to a sitting room, where a fire crackles away in a hearth in the far wall. A tower of books sits beside his wingback chair, almost as tall as her. In a corner by the door, there’s a small, unadorned Christmas tree next to a pile of boxes marked XMAS, a garland of silver tinsel poking out the top. On the other side of his chair, a small table, where a full decanter of something golden and warm-looking sits beside two small cups.

Malfoy falls into his chair and waves at the matching one to the side of him for her to sit, too. His hands are still and controlled as he pours first her cup, then his. She takes it, careful not to slosh any out the sides, and sits it on her lap.

“Why did you invite me here?” she asks.

Malfoy shrugs. “I suppose you’re the closest thing I have to a friend these days. And you’re supposed to be around friends and… loved ones this time of year, are you not?” He says the words like they're painful to bring up, then takes a sip of his drink and sets his cup on the table. “The real question is why you came. This home holds no fond memories for you, Granger.”

“Not too many for you, either. I’d wager.” She takes a sip, surprised to find it pleasant to taste and smooth going down. “Was it a test, then?”

“Not a test for you, Granger. You had little to lose here; by saying yes or no, you maintained control over the situation." He knocks back the rest of his drink and sighs. "It might have been one for me, though.”

She takes another sip. It sits warm and comforting in her stomach, at odds with all the rest of her. “How so?”

He crosses one leg over the other and leans forward. “I did just say you’re the closest thing I have to a friend.”

She matches his posture and watches his features flicker in the firelight. She raises a brow and stares, waits.

He chuckles. “You look like a schoolmarm with your face like that, Granger.”

She frowns. “No, I don’t.”

“That’s the fun thing about facts: you don’t need to agree with them for them to be true.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

He shrugs, but the grin behind his eyes gives him away. “Perhaps I really enjoy our note-sharing.”

“Do you?”

His laugh is strained. “Why must you assume that I have some sort of horrible ulterior motive in inviting you here? If I had any desire to hurt you, I would have done it months ago.”

“Somehow, I’m not filled with confidence.”

He sighs, pours another drink without missing a beat. “My apologies, Granger. You’re of course free to go whenever you wish. I’m sure Potter and Weasley have some ridiculous extended family function for you to drop by at, anyway. What’s the count on that brood at the moment? Must be pushing sixty people under that one rickety roof.”

She crosses her arms and huffs. There’s not much left to say. She could defend the Weasleys, but he’s sort of right: there are an awful lot of people the Weasleys consider family. People she’d rather be able to see in rationed doses. Does that make her awful, preferring the terrible company of the maybe-friend sitting in front of her to the people who treat her like the daughter and sister they never had? She glances at the open door, and the pitch-black hallway beyond it. Beside her, Malfoy stares into the fire, the dancing light casting long, slanting shadows across the sharp angles of his face.

She stands, setting her half-empty cup on the table.

He lifts his glass in a mock salute. “Thanks for coming out, Granger.”

“I’m not going anywhere, unfortunately. Now, get up.”

He snorts. “Why? Am I going with you?”

“We’re going to decorate your Christmas tree.”

His eyes train on her and narrow. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I think you heard me perfectly.” She darts to the corner of the room and drags the tree and boxes back to the centre to being rearranging the wire and plastic branches. It's a sparse little thing; some branches must be missing, some almost barren of the false pine needles. There's not much she can do to patch all the bare spots except stuff them with sparkles and string lights.

“It may have escaped your notice,” he drawls, finishing his second drink in a single gulp, “but we aren’t children anymore, Granger.”

“Precisely why we should decorate it,” she says, starting without him. The silver tinsel has seen better days, but haven’t they all? She shakes the literal cobwebs from them and begins draping it over the scratchy boughs. “You don’t have fond memories of this house, Malfoy, but you persist in living here regardless. Maybe you should make some good memories. It might make things easier on you.”

“You sound exactly like my therapist.”

She swallows her surprise at his admission. “Then it must be good advice.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think your idealism is rather sickening, myself.” But he ducks and rummages through the box closest to him, sorting the ornaments from the tinsel, without further prompting.

“I wouldn’t have thought that your family would use a synthetic tree.” She tries very hard not to roll her eyes as he hands her a length of green tinsel, and wraps it around the short tree anyway. “Any ornaments you want on here?”

“A few, I think. And there are too many fireplaces around for a real pine tree, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t think this would hold up too favourably to flames, either.”

“Likely not, but it’s vastly less prone to shedding than the real thing, so there’s that in its favour. Here,” he holds out a bauble for her to take, “this one goes on top.”

But it’s not any bauble. Pale grey, shimmering, with something written in cursive along the slope of it: _Draco Malfoy, June 5, 1980. Sanctimonia Vincet Semper._

He snaps his fingers in front of her face. “Something wrong, Granger? You looked more distracted than usual.”

“Is that… is that yours?”

He turns the bauble in his hands to inspect the writing. “Which part gave it away, Granger? Yes, this was custom made when I was an infant. Same colour as my eyes, as you can tell. Odd sort of gift to give a baby with no concept of holiday spirit or virulent, unfounded hatred, don’t you think?”

“I saw it, you know.”

He frowns at her. “I don’t think I do know, actually.”

“You know. When I was…” She gestures helplessly around them. “When I was… _here_.”

“Oh.” He swallows, looks everywhere but her face, places the bauble back in the box where he found it. “You mean, _here_ , here.”

“It was under the lounge in that room.”

“Was it?”

“I thought someone had put it there.”

“Someone probably did. My mother hid all sorts of things throughout the house when… everyone was here. Jewels, trinkets, and the like. The security of the vaults was a little… shaky, back then. We had a lot of things go missing in those first few weeks.”

“First few _weeks_?”

“They were here for almost a year, you know,” he tells her, holding out an ornament of a bird that she doesn’t take. “Mother was concerned we’d be run out of house and home. She hid all manner of things she deemed priceless in every nook and cranny she could think of. The elves must have pulled this out before I sent them off.”

“Oh. Is this quite valuable, then?”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Just in sentiment. Not something I make a habit in trading in these days.”

“That’s a shame,” she says, only a little bitter. “A lot of people are cashing in on sentiment these days.”

“And during this, our most sacred of sentimental holidays? How dare they.” He gives her a sidelong look and stands to hang the bird himself. “Do I detect a hint of cynicism, Granger?”

“More than a hint these days, I’m afraid.”

“Understandable. How is your hand?”

Without thinking, she curls her hand into a fist and says, “Well, there’s a reason I’m not holding your bauble right now.”

The laugh that erupts from him is loud and _real_ , echoing in the room and through the long, dark halls. Her cheeks erupt in a violent flush, but she can’t fight the smile at his outburst. She doesn’t remember the last time she laughed like that.

“Oh, Granger,” he says, still chuckling. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You know what I mean,” she mutters.

“Yes, but it’s no less hilarious.” His grin turns to something else, a little quieter, a little more approachable. Like a boy she might have been able to be friends with if he’d smiled at her like that over the long tables of the Great Hall.

“Shut up,” she says instead.

“I don’t think I will, Granger. In fact,” he says, shooting her that same, quiet smile as he retrieves the silver bauble and gives it pride of place close to the top of the strange little tree, “I think I might be making some decent memories after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe I'm not quite so done with these two after all :) I'm ally147writes on Tumblr if anyone wants to chat.


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